French voters have denied President Emmanuel Macron a parliamentary majority following Sunday’s (19 June) second round of legislative elections, while the left and far-right have made significant advances. Macron’s party Renaissance, formerly known as La République en marche, will remain the largest parliamentary group but has lost more than a …
Read More »America And The Middle East
For more than half a century, US engagement across the Arab region, and the wider world, has been premised on “preventive diplomacy,” which entailed knowing more about foreign nations and their citizens than any other country on the planet. It meant that US embassies were right-sized, well-financed, adequately staffed and …
Read More »Lithuania Hopes NATO’s Strategic Concept Leads To More Heavy Metal And Boots On The Ground – Analysis
For decades the Baltic States and Poland have been the most vocal advocates of the threat posed by Russia’s aggressive foreign policy to the peace and stability of Eastern Europe and beyond. Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine there is a feeling that testing NATO’s resolve in the Baltic states …
Read More »Ukraine Crisis And Its Impact On Transatlantic Relations
The changing Transatlantic ties are at the core of the fundamental restructuring of the global order in the wake of the Russia–Ukraine war. The relations between the United States (US) and the European Union (EU) had reached their nadir during the Trump administration, with increasing protectionism and an inward-looking approach …
Read More »How Money Printing Destroyed Argentina And Can Destroy Others
The most dangerous words in monetary policy and economics are “this time is different.” Argentine politicians’ big mistake is to believe that inflation is multicausal and that everything is solved with increasing doses of interventionism. The consumer price index in Argentina experienced a year-on-year rise of 58 percent in April …
Read More »Bitcoin drops below $20,000 as crypto selloff quickens
Bitcoin fell below the psychologically important threshold of $20,000 on Saturday for the first time since late 2020, in a fresh sign that the selloff in cryptocurrencies is deepening. The price of the most popular cryptocurrency had plunged as much as 9.7% to less than $18,600 by late afternoon on …
Read More »IS claims attack on Sikh temple in Afghan capital of Kabul
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for an attack on a Sikh temple in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul that killed at least one worshipper and wounded seven others. IS made the claim in a statement posted on its Amaq website late Saturday. It said the assault on “the Sikh and …
Read More »Lessons from Japan’s Last Civil War for Taiwan
While attending the recent Shangri-La Dialogue on Security in Singapore, Japan’s Prime Minister Kishida Fumio stressed the need to oppose unilateral changes to the status quo by force, no matter where they occur. “I myself have a strong sense that Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” he warned. Needless …
Read More »Ukraine Update: Ukraine-fatigue Is Setting In Around The World, Says British PM
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Saturday stressed that the public needs to keep up its support of Ukraine after nearly four months of war. Media reports said: “The worry that we have is that a bit of Ukraine-fatigue is starting to set in around the world,” Johnson told reporters …
Read More »More Than 30 Islamic State Detainees Escape Syrian Prison
More than 30 Islamic State prisoners escaped from a Kurdish-run prison in Syria’s northern province of Raqqa on Sunday, the pro-government Al-Watan newspaper reported. The inmates escaped from the central prison in northern Raqqa at dawn, Al-Watan reported. The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fanned out in search of the …
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